NEW ZEALAND
PM unfazed by quake
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern barely skipped a beat when an earthquake struck during a live TV interview yesterday morning. She interrupted Newshub host Ryan Bridge to tell him what was happening at the parliament complex in the capital, Wellington. “We’re just having a bit of an earthquake here Ryan, quite a decent shake here,” she said, looking up and around the room. “But, um, if you see things moving behind me.” The magnitude 5.6 quake struck in the ocean about 100km northeast of Wellington, the US Geological Survey said. The quake hit just before 8am and was felt by thousands of New Zealanders who were getting ready to start their work weeks. There were no reports of major damage or injuries. Ardern continued with her interview, telling the host the shaking had stopped. “We’re fine, Ryan,” she said. “I’m not under any hanging lights, I look like I’m in a structurally sound place.”
ITALY
Venice film fest to proceed
The Venice Film Festival is to go ahead as scheduled at the beginning of September, Veneto President Luca Zaia said on Sunday as the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the nation slows. Organizer Biennale di Venezia company in January announced that Cate Blanchett would preside over its 77th edition. Due to the lockdowns imposed on the film industry across the world to limit the spread of the virus, the festival will probably be attended by fewer productions, said Zaia, who is also a board member of the Biennale di Venezia. The nation plans to lift all travel curbs from Wednesday next week and travelers from EU nations would be able to enter without going into quarantine.
GREECE
Island ferries, cafes reopen
The nation yesterday restarted regular ferry services to the islands, and cafes and restaurants were also back open for business. Travel to the islands had been generally off-limits since a lockdown was imposed in late March to halt the spread of COVID-19, with only goods suppliers and permanent residents allowed access. However, a low infection rate prompted the government to start the holiday season three weeks earlier than the expected June 15 date. Social distancing regulations and passenger limits have been imposed on ferries and at restaurants to ward off new infections. State-run health services to combat the coronavirus are being expanded to the islands, with intensive care units being placed on five islands: Lesbos, Samos, Rhodes, Zakynthos and Corfu, along with existing intensive care unit facilities on the island of Crete.
JAPAN
Palace intruder arrested
A Japanese man was yesterday arrested in Tokyo after swimming across the Imperial Palace’s moat to scale an outer wall, entering off-limits parts of the grounds, police said. They said the man appeared to be in his 40s and was arrested mid-morning after emerging on palace grounds shortly before Emperor Naruhito was scheduled to conduct a rice planting ceremony elsewhere on the imperial property. No other details were immediately available, including the man’s identity or motive for the incursion. A police spokesman said the incident did not disrupt the rice planting ceremony. The man is not the first to be arrested for breaching the palace’s defenses. In 2013, two men who identified themselves as British tourists were arrested in their underwear after they swam across the moat to the outer walls, Kyodo News reported.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not